Thursday, March 6, 2008

ADO.NET Sync Services for Devices CTP

This is now available as a CTP download. This CTP enables Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6 .NET CF 2.0 based applications to take advantage of the Sync Services API. Sync Services is now truly a potential replacement for RDA and to some extent also Merge Replication, in particular when used with SQL Server 2008 Change Tracking enabled. The download consists of the required device CAB files, a sample which includes a device app, a web service and a WinForms app. Only N-tier solutions are supported, meaning no direct connection to SQL Server is possible (as with the desktop based Sync Services). This makes a lot of sense, and reduces the footprint for devices.

Development requirements: - Visual Studio 2008 Professional or higher, with Smart Device Extensions installed. - The Sync Designer does NOT work within the device project, but generated code from a WinForms project can be reused.